A French nursing home operator plans to open up to 15 nursing homes after buying the Irish company Grace Healthcare.
Vivalto Vie, which operates in Belgium, France and Spain, said it wanted to double its presence in Ireland within five years. The company, which declined to say how much it paid for Grace Healthcare, is thought to be in talks to buy two nursing homes in Cork and west Dublin.
Grace Healthcare, which was set up by Joe O’Donovan, a former chief executive of Galway Clinic, operates seven Fair Deal nursing homes with 530 beds in Dublin and Monaghan. They include St Glady’s in Terenure and Tara Winthrop in Swords.
Guillaume Raoux, a co-founder of Vivalto Vie, said the company would increase its bed count to 1,000 in Ireland through mergers and acquisitions and buying greenfield sites.
Raoux said his company invested in Ireland because the market is in the early stages of consolidation. “We want to be in the top five players,” he said.
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O’Donovan, who is still a shareholder and chief executive of Grace Healthcare, set up the company in 2019. Together with other investors, including Emerge Capital, an Australian private equity group, he bought into Harvey Healthcare, a company with four nursing homes in Dublin.
Seamus Brady and Derry Shaw, Harvey Healthcare’s founders, have taken three High Court actions against Grace Healthcare since 2020, all of which are pending. It is believed they are seeking up to €1.4 million.
Raoux distanced himself from the cases, saying they related to issues predating Vivalto Vie’s purchase of Grace Healthcare.
